A Cognitive Approach To Metaphor In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Metaphor is an essential component of poetry and it is a basic building block that makes poetry. Poets frequently use it not only to simulate the reader to think and imagine, but also provoke a wide range of emotions. It is the poet's use of metaphor that creates a poem to be so powerful and interesting. Besides, metaphor adds description to a poem to help the reader take something abstract and put it into concrete terms, then figure out what meaning the poet is intending to convey. It allows them to go beyond the outward view of the text and further into the internal structure of the poem to grasp its deep meaning. On the other hand, poetry is complex and difficult to comprehend due to the fact that poets frequently use metaphor to convey their thoughts, for metaphor has various interpretations, which, correspondingly results in varying interpretations of the poem. The proper way to understand metaphor is to analyze it cognitively, for cognitive theory has been able to show that meaning does not reside in language so much as it is being used, that language is not a separate structural system within the brain, but of the general cognitive processes that enable the human mind to conceptualize experience, processes (Johnson, 1987).In recent years, cognitive linguistic theory has been applied to analyze literary texts frequently, especially cognitive poetics represented by Freeman who applied new cognitive strategy to the interpretation of poetry. Based on this, the thesis explores metaphor present in Emily Dikinson's poems from cognitive linguistic theory. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) prevails as a powerful voice and literary figure in the American literary world. Since her poems were first published in 1890, critical response to her works has been both abundant and unceasing. Continuous publication of her poems and manuscripts has been spurred by vigorous scholarly inquiry and public interest in both her poetry and her life. Scholars and critics attempt to go into Dickinson's world from different perspectives.In this thesis, three of of Emily Dickinson's famous poems are selected for cognitive linguistic analysis. By analyzing metaphor in the selected poems, the present author attempts to reveal the cognitive process on the part of readers within the frameworks of category theory, conceptual integration theory and mappings theory in interpreting metaphor in Dickinson's poems and as a corollary, to explore how Emily Dickinson uses her imagination to create a coherent conceptualization that is realized by metaphors and schemata, and how poets and readers unconsciously use their cognition in creating and interpreting metaphors in poetry, illustrate how a cognitive approach can illuminate the insights and how metaphors in poetry can be understood and appreciated.